Under normal circumstances, these two things don’t really have anything in common. But here in St. John’s, during the month of November, Quidi Vidi Brewery and Fogtown Barber & Shop collaborated on a project that would break fundraising records in this part of town. I was lucky enough to have a small part in it.

I’ve been working with my friends at the brewery for a while now, and earlier this summer they approached me with an upcoming project: a new beer to be released. At the time I started the project, I wasn’t fully aware of what was involved with the campaign. After a few small changes to the label, the first thing we did was come up with a packaging colour theme and layout. One of the initial concepts looked something like this:

I like the black and white because it’s classic, but we ended up going with the gold and black- it gave more of an old school barbershop vibe. The labels turned out pretty deadly, because the gold had a metallic sheen to it. I was pretty stoked on the final packaging concept as well.

As I learned more about the ongoing project, I realized what an ingenious idea the whole thing was from a marketing perspective.

They decided to go with a Movember theme- the beer was to be a limited release during the month of November, and a team would be created to fundraise for men’s health. Here’s where the barbershop connection comes into play. Three events were held during November to promote the beer: an initial launch party and face-shaving event, and mid-month ‘check in’ party on the moustache growing, and a final awards event and count of total funds raised.

And fundraise they did. The QVFOGMO team raised over $30,000 for men’s health, blowing their initial fundraising goal of 10K out of the water. They ranked #1 in Atlantic Canada for fundraising, #16 nationally, and were the #1 brewery in the WORLD. Absolutely unreal.

To top it all off, Fogtown Lager sold out- like I mean, really sold out. The NLC supply was gone in the blink of an eye. The brewery held limited releases of 30 cases at a time every Saturday of the month, and ended up with lineups at the door before they even opened. Oh, and I should mention that the beer itself is most definitely delicious. It’s a pretty sweet feeling to have been involved in design work with a great cause.